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Prabhupada:
There is a verse. Narayana-parah sarve na kutashchana bibhyati
[Srimad-Bhagavatam 6.17.28]. If one is God realized soul,
he is not afraid of anything. Svargapavarga-narakeshv api
tulyartha-darshinah. So actually, if one is self-realized, he is
no more fearful or concerned with the bodily necessities of life. That
is liberation. Just like as you mentioned sleeping. Sleeping also, a
bodily necessity. When you are tired, you sleep. That is bodily
necessity. But it is not spiritually necessary. About the Gosvamis it
is said, nidrahara-viharakadi-vijitau: "Conquered over
sleeping, eating, mating." That is also one of the symptoms of
self-realization. These things are necessities of the body. So the more
one is advanced in self-realization, these things will be minimized:
eating, sleeping, mating and defending. And gradually it will come to
nil because this is bodily necessities. Self, the active principle,
that is different. The active principle necessity is different. That is
Krishna consciousness, God consciousness. But these are bodily
necessities: eating, sleeping, mating. So, so long this body is there,
of course, we must eat, we must sleep. That is required. But the more
we advance, these necessities diminished. Yes. Bhaktih
pareshanubhavo viraktir anyatra syat [Srimad-Bhagavatam
11.2.42]. Then sleeping will be considered a waste of time. A
self-realized man goes to sleep. He thinks that "I am going to waste so
much time, because still I am subjected to the necessities of this
body." He regrets.
Professor
Dürckheim: The progress of self-realization is a sequence of
experiences, isn't it, of inner experiences?
Prabhupada:
Yes.
Professor
Dürckheim: The progress of self-realization is a progress of
inner experiences.
Prabhupada:
Yes.
Professor
Dürckheim: And I do believe that at the actual moment still,
the treasure in the European peoples, the different peoples, who went
through the war, through concentration camps, through battlefields and
bombing nights, are hidden in their hearts certain moments when death
was near and they were wounded and nearly torn in pieces. Because they
had a certain experience they survived. And again and again, when I
give a lecture, I have two or three people, waiting, telling me, "Now
you just reminded me an experience long ago, ten days ago, two months
ago, when I thought I was a little bit crazy, and now I understand it
has been the experience, perhaps the most important of my life, on
which I should have built my future inner way." And these experiences
are still there. And once people understand, they don't need a war and
a battleship and a concentration camp and a bombing night to take
serious certain inner experiences when they are suddenly are touched by
this divine reality, and they suddenly feel that this bodily existence
is not lasting at all.
Prabhupada:
That's it. That we can experience every night.
Professor
Dürckheim: Yes, exactly.
Prabhupada:
When we dream, my body is left on the bed and I go somewhere. That we
experience, that I am separate from this body. At that time I forget
my, this body is lying down on the bed. I am acting in a different
atmosphere. So and again, in daytime, I forget that at night I was in a
different body, and I went to such and such place or on the sky I was
flying. I forget. At night I forget this body and at daytime I forget
that body. But I am existing. Therefore I am not this body. I am
existing in this body and that body, but that body I have forgotten,
and this body I forget. So this is a structure on my mind only.
Actually I am different from the mind. And that is self-realization.
That is described in the Bhagavad-gita. Indriyani
parany ahur indriyebhyah param manah [Bhagavad-gita
3.42]. [to Satsvarupa:] Find out this verse. Manasas tu para
buddhir buddhes tu
yah sah. That's it. It is in the Third Chapter, I think.
Satsvarupa:
indriyani
parany ahur
indriyebhyah param manah
manasas tu para buddhir
yo buddheh paratas tu sah [Bhagavad-gita 3.42]
"Translation: The
working senses are superior to dull matter; mind is higher than the
senses; intelligence is still higher than the mind; and he, the soul,
is even higher than the intelligence."
Prabhupada:
This is description.
Professor
Dürckheim: May I put a question to the question of time, the
meaning of time? I think there are two ways to look at time and to look
at eternity.
Prabhupada:
Time is eternal. Time is eternal, but we calculate time, past and
present and future, according to my temporary material existence. Just
like a small ant. The ant's past and present is different from my past
and present. I am a human being. I live for hundred years. So my past
and present is different from the ant who lives for, say, a few hours.
Professor
Dürckheim: Is different from?
Prabhupada:
From the ant, a small living entity. And similarly, Brahma, his past,
present, is different because he has done millions and millions of
years as one day. So the time is eternal, but according to our
condition, occupying the time and space, we calculate past and present
and future. Otherwise time itself is eternal.
Professor
Dürckheim: Well, now I question you. You see, talking about
eternity, there are two meanings or concepts at the same time. The one
is that the finite life is going on infinitely, infinity, millions of
years. That is one way to think about eternity.
Prabhupada:
Yes.
Professor
Dürckheim: But there is another one.
Prabhupada:
Eternity means, we say, no beginning no end. That is eternity.
Professor
Dürckheim: Isn't there also this other one, when, for
instance, Christ says, "I am before Abraham was," this "I am." There is
one kind of eternity which has nothing to do with past and future at
all, which is beyond past and future.
Prabhupada:
Past and future is concerned with this body.
Professor
Dürckheim: Is concerned with this body. It is concerned,
exactly, with this body and with this ego, with regard to which there
is a before and an after, up and down. And if you take away this ego,
what's there, what's left?
Prabhupada:
That is pure ego. Now I am born Indian, say, seventy-five years ago, or
seventy-eight years ago, and I have got this Indian body, I have got
this false ego that "I am Indian; I am this body." This is
misconception.
Professor
Dürckheim: That is one way to look at time.
Prabhupada:
Time is there, but because I have got this temporary body, I am
thinking past, present, future. The temporary body will vanish. I shall
get another temporary body. Then again my begins past and present. So
therefore this is called illusion. Time is eternal. It has no
beginning, no end, but we transmigrate from one body to another. We are
calculating, miscalculating, past, present, future.
Professor
Dürckheim: Yes, time has no beginning and no end. But time in
this second sense has nothing to do with beginning and end.
Prabhupada:
It has no end, beginning, no end. The beginning and end is of this
body. And in relationship with this body, we are calculating past,
present, future.
Professor
Dürckheim: But without this body, you wouldn't become
conscious of what is beyond body.
Prabhupada:
I am conscious always. Just like in sleep, I am getting different body,
but still I am conscious. And daytime, that sleeping body is gone;
still, I am conscious. That consciousness is impure on account of our
contact with this temporary body. So when you come to the pure
consciousness, that is Krishna consciousness.
Professor
Dürckheim: But as an experience, the pure consciousness as an
experience, has to have a background which is not pure consciousness.
Otherwise it could become...
Prabhupada:
No. Pure consciousness is actually you are. Just like water. Water is
pure. When it is comes from the sky, it is clear crystal water. But as
soon as it touches the ground, it becomes muddy. Similarly, we soul,
spirit soul, we are pure. As soon as we come in contact with this
matter, material existence, we become impure. And there are three
stages of impurity: goodness, passion and ignorance. So all of them are
impure. Unless one comes to the spiritual consciousness—he may be a
very nice man—he is infected with the impurity of goodness. He is
thinking, "I am very big man, I am very..." That is also impurity. And
another man does not know what he is, just like animal, all the
animals. That is also impurity. When both of them will come to the
clear consciousness that "I am part and parcel of God; my duty is to
serve God," that is Krishna consciousness. So long he identifies with
this material consciousness, he is impure. Just like people are
fighting: "I am German," "I am Englishman," "I am this," "I am that,"
"I am black," "I am white," "I am brahmana," "I am shudra"—so
many, designations. These designations are impurity. Just like
sometimes the artists, they manufacture some statue naked. In France I
saw, naked. They take it this naked statue is pure art, not dressed.
Similarly, when you come to the nakedness of spirit soul without this
designation of this body, "I am American," "I am German," "I am this,"
"I am that," that is purity.
Professor
Dürckheim: But the meaning of the impure is to be the
background of the consciousness of the pure without any experiencing
the suffering in the impure.
Prabhupada:
The consciousness is covered by impurity, just like your health is
covered by disease, and the symptom is fever. But that is a covering.
That is not your healthy state. Similarly, my consciousness, when I
think that "I am American," "I am German," "I am this," "I am that," "I
am that," that is impurity. And when he thinks that "I am neither
German, neither American, nor this nor that. I am part and parcel of
God," that is pure consciousness.
Professor
Dürckheim: But in order to get there, to feel that one is
neither this nor that, one must have suffered by first having thought
that one is this or that.
Prabhupada:
That suffering is just like you suffer in the dream. You are attacked
by a tiger. There is no tiger. Actually there is no suffering. But on
account of ignorance, you are thinking, "The tiger is eating me."
Professor
Dürckheim: Yes, but this is a very good example because the
dream of the tiger comes very often. And it always means that you are
pursued by some of your inner instincts, yourself. So you discover in
the image of the tiger something which is not right in yourself.
Prabhupada:
Yes, that experience is also material. That is not spiritual
experience. That experience is going on continually so long we are
materially attached. Because in the material world we are constantly
changing our body. Your experience in childhood is different from the
experience at this time. So as we are changing our body, we are getting
different experiences, and all those experiences are photographed
within the mind. And they sometimes come out and make an intermixture,
and we see dreams and so many contradictory things. This is going on,
mental speculation. That is hovering on the mental plane. That is not
spiritual plane. That, it is stated:
indriyani
parany ahur
indriyebhyah param manah
manasas tu para buddhir
buddhes tu yah paratah sah [Bhagavad-gita 3.42]
So we have to
transcend the platform of intelligence also. Then we come
to the platform of spiritual realization. That is instructed in the Bhagavad-gita.
... So our real business is how to become free from all these
designations. Yes. Then we come to the real consciousness. That real
consciousness is that "I am eternal. God is eternal. I am part and
parcel of God. My duty is to serve God. And now I am serving also. I am
not free from service, but I am serving under designation." Just like
you went to fight, because you designated yourself that "I am German."
This is an example, that "I must fight, give service to my country."
Somebody is thinking, "Give service to my community" or "to my family."
Or if there is nobody else, at least "to my dog." So this is going on.
So we have to close all these designations and become pure and serve
God. And that is self-realization.
sarvopadhi-vinirmuktam
tat-paratvena nirmalam
hrishikena hrishikesha-
sevanam bhaktir uchyate [Chaitanya-charitamrita
Madhya 19.170]
Just like the
Arjuna. Arjuna was put into the ba[ttlefield]... You have read Bhagavad-gita,
I think, this Bhagavad-gita?
Professor
Dürckheim: Yes.
Prabhupada:
So he was thinking in terms of designations, that "I am... I belong to
the same family. The other side, they are my cousin-brothers. They
belong to the same family. So why shall I fight? Let them enjoy." From
material point of view it is very good man. But Krishna condemned him. Ashochyan
anvashochas tvam prajna-vadan: [Bg. 2.11] "You are talking very
high words, but you are fool number one." That is the first, because he
was talking on the platform of this bodily concept of life. But after
hearing Bhagavad-gita, when he understood that "I am not
this body; I am eternal servant of Krishna; my duty is to obey the
orders of Krishna," then he fought. Superficially, he remained the same
soldier. But in the beginning he was a soldier for his designation of
this body, and later on, he became a soldier to carry out the order of
the Supreme. That is the difference. So when we act to carry out the
orders of the Supreme, that is self-realization, not for this body.
Professor
Dürckheim: There is only one way toward peace, through
self-realization of those who are responsible.
Prabhupada:
Yes. Self-realization, that is stated in the Bhagavad-gita,
that one should understand that "I am not enjoyer. Nobody is enjoyer."
That is false. They are trying, endeavor, for enjoying this world, and
that is false. Real enjoyer is the Supreme Lord. We are trying to
occupy this land, that land. "This is Germany. This is England. This is
France. This is India. This is my land, worshipable. Land is
worshipable. It is my land." But he should know that no land belongs to
us. Everything belongs to God. And this is a fact. The land is not
created by us. The ocean is not created by us. Then why should we
claim, "This is German ocean, and this is English ocean"? This is all
false imagination. So when it comes to this understanding, that
"Nothing belongs to us..." The United Nations, they are fighting for
the last twenty years, but they are fighting on the false ground
because everyone is thinking, "This land is mine. I must protect it."
So they have no self-realization, and there is no peace.
Professor
Dürckheim: As soon two, two men who are realized, there is no
war. There is a very wonderful story. When the Emperor of Japan took
over the leadership again after having been for six hundred years only
the High Priest. Now he wanted to be again the emperor. And he was
submitting one dainu [?] after the other one. Only one resisted in
Tokyo. General of Tokyo did not submit to the emperor and didn't allow
anybody to come in to negotiate. So the emperor was very troubled. He
said, "Should I burn down Tokyo? I wouldn't like to do it." And then
his young sword [?] master asked him—he was a realized man—"Do you
permit me to just ride in this town and see the great general?" And he
said, "Yes, you know the guards do not permit." "Let me do." He sat on
horseback and just rode through. The guards, like this, let him pass.
He announced himself to the great general. General said, "Yes, with him
I am going to talk." And the general himself, being a self-realized man
said, "Well, all right." In twenty minutes things were in order, and
they submitted gently, and without a single shot, peace was
established. Because two men of a high level of self-realization met.
Prabhupada:
Yes. So that is our point, that if we understand, every one of us
realize that we are all servant of God or sons of God, that everything
belongs to God, so we can use our Father's property for our maintenance
as much as we require, not more than that, so if we think like that,
that is Krishnaa consciousness, and there will be no more war,
everything peaceful.
Professor
Dürckheim: In my work I always feel
the great difficulty again and again. That is also there. It's a great
difference to believe that you are the son of God and to feel it and to
experience it. As long it's only a belief, it's well meaning doing. How
to prepare the conditions by which disciples might feel it? That's all
of my daily work.
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